1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to a tablet conveying apparatus capable of adjusting the tablet position and a tablet cutting apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In past, in hospital and pharmacy tablets are provided to patients according to prescriptions. When one tablet is overdosage or it is hard for a patient to swallow one tablet, this tablet then has to be cut in half or more for example. For such circumstance, cutting a tablet directly by hand is the simplest and fast way. Therefore, a cutting groove is formed on the tablet. In addition, a cutter for cutting tablets is also disclosed by Japanese gazette of JP 6-41546.
Due to that cutting tablets by hand is not very efficient and economic in practice, an automatic tablet cutting machine is disclosed by Japanese gazette of JP 3-114241 and JP 2-29257.
However, the cutting machine uses a belt to retain the tablet and convey to a rotary blade (or a cutter capable of moving up and down), and then a circular tablet as shown in FIG. 10C is cut. The automatic tablet cutting machine is designed only for the circular tablet rather than for oval or rectangular tablets. For example, a tablet shown in FIGS. 10B and 10C cannot be cut by the automatic tablet cutting machine.
Namely, the tablet cannot be stably retained by the belt if the tablet is oval or rectangular and the long side of the tablet can not be kept in one direction. Therefore, the relative position between the tablet and the cutter is not well defined when the tablet is conveyed to the cutter. And it is hard to equally cut the tablet in half.
The present invention can adjust the position of the tablet as shown in FIG. 10C and a tablet conveying and cutting apparatus capable of adjusting the position of the tablet is provided.
Furthermore, a machine capable of adjusting the position of the tablet and conveying the tablet for examining the tablet is also disclosed (such as JP 7-201644). However, the machine uses an industrial conveying belt for transporting the belt and it is only suitable for large equipments of a factory. Therefore, the proposed machine is not suitable for an automatic cutting machine for a pharmacy.
The present invention provides an automatic tablet cutting machine suitable for a pharmacy. Namely, no matter what kind of shape the tablet is, the position of the tablet can be adjusted and arranged, and then conveyed to a cutting location for cutting the tablet.
The present invention provides a tablet conveying apparatus for adjusting position of a tablet, which comprises an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet for a first predetermined distance; and an oblique plate for making the tablet fall a second predetermined distance.
The present invention further provides a tablet cutting apparatus for cutting a tablet at a predetermined location. The tablet cutting apparatus comprises a blade for cutting the tablet; an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet for a predetermined distance; an oblique plate for making the tablet arranged arranging device by the to fall along the oblique plate; a shutter for stopping the tablet fallen from the oblique plate; a retainer device for retaining the tablet from the long side of the tablet stopped by the shutter; and a conveying device for conveying the tablet adjusted by the retainer device to a cutting location.
The blade mentioned above can be a rotary blade or a cutter capable of moving up and down. The conveying device further comprises a rotary roller and a resilient plate. The rotary roller further comprises a groove formed on the center of the circumstance of the rotary roller corresponding to the blade, and a rugged surface formed symmetrically with respect to the groove on the circumstance of the rotary roller. In addition, the arranging device comprises a pushing plate for pushing the tablet to move forwards.
The arranging device can also comprise a pushing plate for pushing the tablet to move along an arc path. Moreover, the arranging device can comprise a pushing plate for pushing the tablet to move along an arc path; and a baffle plate for radially applying a force on the front end of the tablet while the baffle plate is contact with the front end of the tablet.
The present invention further provides a A tablet cutting apparatus for cutting a tablet at a predetermined location, which comprises a rotary blade for rotationally cutting the tablet; an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet for a predetermined distance; a retainer device for retaining the tablet arranged by the arranging device from the long side of the tablet such that the position of the tablet is coincident with a location corresponding to the rotary blade; and a conveying device for conveying the tablet adjusted by the retainer device to the location of the rotary blade.
According to the present invention, the long side of the tablet is perpendicular to its moving direction, and the retainer device retains the ends of the long side of the tablet under such a state. While the tablet is located at a location corresponding to the rotary blade, the tablet is conveyed by a conveying device to the rotary blade for cutting. Therefore, such as an oval tablet or even though a non-circular tablet can be correctly modified its position and then conveyed to the rotary blade.
In addition, comparing with cutting by pressure, because the rotary blade 36 can cut the tablet M safely and credibly, the tablet M can be correctly and shape-irrelevantly cut in half.
The present invention further provides a tablet cutting apparatus for cutting a tablet at a predetermined location. The apparatus comprises a rotary blade for rotationally cutting the tablet; an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet along an arc channel; a position modification device for further modifying the position of the tablet fallen from the arranging device such that the long side of the tablet is perpendicular to the tablet""s falling direction; a retainer device for retaining the tablet rearranged by the position modification device from the long side of the tablet such that the position of the tablet is coincident with a location corresponding to the rotary blade; and a conveying device for conveying the tablet adjusted by the retainer device to the location of the rotary blade using a rotary roller and resilient plates, wherein a force applied on the tablet during cutting is similar to that applied to the rotary roller and is for setting a relative position of the rotary blade and the conveying device and a rotational direction of the rotary blade.
A position modification device is further installed for modifying the long side of the tablet fallen from the arrange device to be perpendicular to the falling direction. Therefore, even though the long side of the tabled is not arranged to be perpendicular to its moving direction, the position modification device can further actually and correctly rearrange the position of the tablet.
Furthermore, the tablet is retained by the retainer roller and the supporting resilient plate and then moved to the location of the rotary blade. Because the force applied on the tablet during cutting is similar to the force applied to the rotary roller and is for setting the relative position of the rotary blade and the retainer roller, therefore no extra force is applied on the tablet or rotary blade. The tablet can be smoothly and correctly cut.
In addition, the present invention further provides a tablet cutting apparatus for cutting a tablet at a predetermined location. The tablet cutting apparatus comprises a blade for cutting the tablet; a tablet case for providing the tablet; an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet for a predetermined distance; an oblique plate for making the tablet arranged by the arranging device to fall along the oblique plate; a shutter for stopping the tablet fallen from the oblique plate and further rearranging the position of the tablet; a retainer device for retaining the tablet from the long side of the tablet stopped by the shutter such that the position of the tablet is coincident with a location corresponding to the rotary blade; a conveying device for conveying the tablet adjusted by the retainer device to a cutting location; and a position changing device installed along a falling path of the tablet out of the tablet case.
Moreover, the present invention provides a tablet cutting device, which comprises a blade for cutting the tablet; an arranging device for arranging a long side of the tablet to be perpendicular to the tablet""s moving direction by moving the tablet for a predetermined distance; an oblique plate for making the tablet arranged by the arranging device to fall along the oblique plate; a shutter for stopping the tablet fallen from the oblique plate and further rearranging the position of the tablet; a retainer device for retaining the tablet from the long side of the tablet stopped by the shutter such that the position of the tablet is coincident with a location corresponding to the rotary blade; and a conveying device for conveying the tablet adjusted by the retainer device to a cutting location, wherein the retainer device is expanded within a range for guiding the tablet before the conveying device is driven.
It is to be understood that both the foregoing general description and the following detailed description are exemplary, and are intended to provide further explanation of the invention as claimed.